Tag Archives: ipod

How to save Windows Mobile

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Among Blackberry, Microsoft, Google, and Apple, Microsoft was the earliest player in mobile computing and smart phones, so why have they failed in this area?

With Windows Mobile 7 waiting in the wings, it occurred to me that I just don’t see people using Windows Mobile devices that much any more. In fact, at work, we’ve seen a shift from WinMo to Blackberry and iPhone, with the exodus split about 60/40 in favor of Blackberry. The market share shift has been swift and decisive.

Now I know this isn’t exactly news, but I was trying to figure out why.  Microsoft correctly foresaw the mobile market as being the next big thing for them and the software industry, and they had very early foresight that mobile was going to sweep our eyes away from our desktops in a major way. They had the timing right, but their solution is, and has been, inadequate.

The Value of Ecosystems

One key difference between Microsoft and Apple is that, while they both offer end-to-end ecosystems (Microsoft with XBox, Apple with iTunes/iPhone/AppleTV), they seem to use their ecosystems to different ends.  I believe Apple’s tightly-integrated iTunes ecosystem was primarily driven by the “digital paranoia” of the record industry in the early 2000′s, and it may not have been Apple’s idea to provide such a closed environment. But, in the end, consumers seem to prefer the “just works” ecosystem over the “bring your own interface” approach. For this reason, Microsoft can be seen to have failed at establishing a clear content-to-consumer delivery model based on Windows Mobile.

What’s worse, the Zune, which could have been a great launchpad for a simplified, stylus-free version of Windows Mobile four years ago, exists on yet another Microsoft island, limiting its value to the consumer. Rectifying this problem by bringing the ill-fated Zune line into the limelight of the Windows ecosystem would go a long way towards making Windows Mobile relevant again. Think iPod.

Failure to Recognize Consumer Patterns of Behavior

It was only a matter of time before the average consumer was using personal devices to manage nearly every aspect of his life. Yet Microsoft took the wait and see approach, preferring to believe that the corporate world would drive personal device adoption, where, in reality, we can see that personal, entertainment-oriented device use has driven the entire mobile industry for the last several years.  Two parts gear lust, and one part nerdification of the general populous, this movement is the exact opposite of the strategy Microsoft used for Windows Mobile.

Most People Lose Their Stylus

The user interface options available on Windows Mobile devices, until recently, have been based on resistive touch screen technology, generally used with a small, inkless pen called a stylus.  Blackberry, by contrast, has always offered its trademark “scroll wheel”, and Apple developed a slew of UI technologies, including groundbreaking iPod controls, that culminated in a stylus-free touch-screen control environment for the iPhone. Windows Mobile never employed either approach, so solving this problem (and Microsoft is solving it) will help.

Give Developers a Reason to Develop

The real trick isn’t coming up with the idea. The real trick isn’t coding the program.  The real trick IS getting people to notice.  Apple has more than solved this problem, for better or worse, with the Appstore.  You bring the code, we bring the customers.  While some web sites have served as communities of developers and consumers of WinMo apps, they exist outside the ecosystem and don’t provide turnkey delivery of content.

When Microsoft finally did show up on the scene with an official WinMo store, they stubbed their toe by naming it “Windows Marketplace for Mobile”.  Srsly?

Stop Trying to Look Like Windows

Windows Mobile shouldn’t look like Windows and shouldn’t even be called “Windows”, since a windowing environment on a 3″ screen is a useless idea anyway. Yet when we look back at the releases of Windows Mobile (and its mobile predecessors), we get the idea that Microsoft has always wanted WinMo to look as much like desktop Windows as possible. Only with Windows Mobile 7 has this pattern been broken. (See above screen grab.)

Blackberry never had this problem, as their main objective was to develop a good mobile UI, and they had no ties to an existing desktop environment.  Apple, who does have Mac OS X, decided not to bother bringing the X look and feel to their mobile device. This was a great decision, of course.

MS and Apple trade cash positions–here’s why

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Apple is not the startup eater that Microsoft is. Nor is it the wontonly-investing-into-ill-fated-projects type of company it used to be (and Microsoft remains).  When things change at Apple–like the introduction of new projects and initiatives, the world stands alert and gets excited.

Why? Because Apple, while breaking new ground at what often seems to be a snail’s pace–that is, folks always talk about things they wish Apple would do but Apple never does–Apple has identified sharply-defined, effective market verticals to embrace while stockpiling tons and tons of cash.

Microsoft once had 64 billion (with a b) in the bank. Today, they have 25 million (with an m). Meanwhile, Apple’s billions grow.

So, for Apple shareholders, the question is whether to be happy with the cash position or to begin wondering what their investment is going to DO with all that cash.  I mean, does Apple start taking bigger risks now? Or are things like a video-game console or a car-puter still too risky for Mr. Jobs?  Yet the paths to these ends are obvious.

The iPod Touch is already the basis of a car-puter. All it takes to complete that puzzle is GPS hardware.
And the Apple TV, for all its simpleness, already has graphics, storage, and memory horsepower to compete with the PS3, Wii, and Xbox. So could Apple do these things, with all the cash they have? Sure.

But will they?

Part of the reason Microsoft is where they are today is their history of arrogant rampantness. Yeah, we can dominate any vertical, right?  Not so, apparently. The Xbox isn’t the cash cow MS would’ve liked. Neither, then, is Windows Mobile. For that matter, neither is the Mac Business Unit.  But Microsoft dived right into these things believing that only dominance across the board would guarantee survival in the long term.

It turns out that you only need to dominate a few things–like music distribution–to survive, and, in Apple’s case, to flourish.  It’s still better to innovate than absorb, and creative thinking beats strategic thinking.  This is how Apple is beating Goliath: instead of fighting the battles Microsoft picked, they’ve created their own battlefield, and its name begins with a lower-case “i”.